Author: Bill Hendricks -- Shadowmason

All things are good... Life... Position... And being.

Creation or Construction

 

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. 

G.K. Chesterton’s “Are You Creating or Constructing?”
Drawing on Paper
Tumult, Mixed Media, Hendricks ©2021

This article came to me through a friend on LinkedIn that I respect very much, Chris Zuege. The article is by Robert Rose. Chris posts on LinkedIn often, and I always find his posts enlightening.  This resonated with me because the work I do is very off the cuff.  I often wonder as I am working and when it is done. Am I the tool or the creator? For me, this quote and article gave me an answer. I am the tool, and what I create was loved before it existed. 

I know it has been quite a while since I posted to this blog. The truth is that I was off learning. I studied color… read philosophy… learned more about  3D digital art. I will be posting more regularly again.  

Today’s post was important to me. First, to wish everyone a great holiday and an even more fabulous new year and then share my last drawing of 2021.  Its title is Tumult. It fits for 2021. 

New Works–Words I Cannot Spell

a digital image created by Bill Hendricks
Bill Hendricks © 2020

“Disobey Me” is a poem by Sally Gardner. 

They told me I was dyslexic

it didn’t describe me
belonged in the library
of words I can’t spell|
no matter how many times they tell
you just try harder sound it out
simple when you think about
it. Stop giving me the third degree
don’t put me down
don’t make me fret
I can’t learn my alphabet
it doesn’t go in any logical order
the stress gives me attention deficit disorder
at school I wanted to go it alone
they told me that’s unwise
they called me unteachable 

The poem continues …. Disobey Me

Please visit the other images in the series, “Words I Cannot Spell” (words-that-i-cannot-spell-an-experience-of-a-dyslexic/)

The Drawing that Will not be Done

The drawing wants to draw what is invisible to the naked eye.It’s very difficult.The effort to write is always beyond my strength. What you see here, these lines, these strokes, are rungs on the ladder of writing, the steps which I have cut with my fingernails in my own wall, in order to hoist myself up above and beyond myself.

Cixous, Hélène, and Catherine A. F. MacGillivray. “Without End No State of Drawingness No, Rather: The Executioner\’s Taking Off.” New Literary History, vol. 24, no. 1, 1993, pp. 91–103. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/469272
Mixed Media Drawing by Bill Hendricks
Drawing Without End Hendricks © 2021, mixed-media, approx: 5″x 5″

This drawing lingers for me. Not wanting to call itself done. Yet, even when I call it finished, it calls me back. A friend asked me what I was doing a few times when he called from New York, and I told him, “I am working on a drawing, and it won’t end.” He asked me, “How do you know when it is done… Don’t you stop?”
Well, no. You don’t just stop. Some might say I should. I am moving on, but it sits on my desk. Done for the moment. 

Art ReEducation

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.  ~ Pablo Picasso

Bill's working studio.
My Subterranean Studio

Bill Hendricks’s studio, upper-right-corner is the traveling studio

I earned my MFA (Master of Fine Arts) from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). It was a wonderful experience; I was lucky to have a teaching position at Minneapolis Community Technical College (MCTC). I taught Graphic Design and Web Design as a 3/4-time permanent faculty member and attended MCAD part-time as I earned my MFA. 

After graduation, I was ready to launch a career as a full-time artist. MCAD prepared me well by providing me with great instructors and an environment. 

Still, after graduation, I immersed myself in design, typography, the web, HTML, CSS, and associated software for the next 10-12 years for my students and job. I retired from teaching last year, and although the wonderful education MCAD provided. It was apparent; I needed to work where I left off after completing my MFA. So I am sharing and documenting my journey. Mainly for me.

Hey, did you hear the joke, “What do the acronyms BFA and MFA stand for?

Answer: BFA stands for big f—ing attitude and MFA for major f—ing attitude.”  I know it is an old joke.

Anyway, I added one new category in the sidebar titled, Inspirational and Technically Instructional–YouTube Channels. These sites, amongst others, re-educated and reminded me of some of the skills I lost.

The Painted Work—What’s mine?

 

What I saw before me was the critic-in-chief The New York Times saying: In looking at a painting today, “to lack, a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial.” I read it again. It didn’t say “something helpful” or “enriching” or even “extremely valuable.” No, the word was “crucial.”

Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word, 1975
https://www.billemory.com/NOTES/wolfe.html
Drawing working with pen and ink
Experiment … Part of the Process, Mixed Media, Hendricks©2020

The quote above was written in response to an article in the New York Times, on Sunday, April 28, 1974, by art critic Hilton Kramer.

This blog is a journal of sorts, featuring my artwork and my ideas about art as I understand it. After 67 years of living, I now get to start practicing what I believe I am meant to do. That is to do art.

As I work, read, and reacquaint myself with myself through my art and studies, I seek a theory of me. It is becoming more and more apparent that I am emerging both intellectually and spiritually through my art.

I have never been keen on the significant art pubs or the art critics. Only because, through big words and lengthy explanation of what they see or how they interpret, the work often shuts out, divides, or disqualifies the everyday joe or mary from viewing, collecting, and enjoying art.

I guess part of objecting to the art authoritarians is that I never felt like I fit in being a blue-collar Catholic boy that is gay, not queer, dyslectic, alcoholic, and Quaker. So I often had to forge my own beliefs and codes of conduct.

That being said, I do believe there has to be some theory, some idea, path, or journey the casual viewer might need to understand my work or any artwork better.

Although, Wolfe is critical of Kramers’s reference to the “crucial” need for a perspective theory. Wolfe doesn’t say no knowledge is necessary. Thus every artist usually provides an artist statement for the viewer and gallery visitors.

I guess Artchangeslives(dot)com is where I work to find the theory of Bill.

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